


Echoes

by Salmonellagogo



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Amnesiac Bruce, M/M, touch starved jason?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26564167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmonellagogo/pseuds/Salmonellagogo
Summary: One man's problem is another man's treasure, if only.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 9
Kudos: 113





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kuro49](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/gifts).



> Something quick for Kuro.

In the unlit lull of Bruce’s apartment downtown, Jason pauses when Bruce Wayne gets on his knees. He is half-seated at the kitchen pass through, elbow on polished wood and studying Bruce’s face keenly. 

“I’m not easy,” Jason says after a beat. 

Bruce smiles, impeccably pleased, like he absolutely knows Jason is a sure thing despite his words, the cat that got the cream, and he says, “I am.”

Jason’s stomach twists. He can walk out. He can say the truth and put a stop to this farce. It would be the right thing to do. But… he doesn’t. 

Because on his knees, Bruce is bearable. 

So Jason looks him in the eyes and wills the butterflies in his stomach to recede. 

“Right,” he says and fists a hand in Bruce’s hair. 

  
  


No one has told him, is the thing. 

Not until he bumps into Bruce in broad daylight and sees no recognition in his eyes. 

The still warm coffee that he purposely tips over as he exits the coffee shop and meets Bruce head on dripped over Bruce’s hand and stains his perfect three piece suit. Jason is nothing if not petty and coffee stains seemed better than a bullet. 

And then--

“Are you alright?” a warm and rich voice drifts down to him. 

Bruce holds Jason’s elbow, a steady point of contact unnecessarily offered to keep him upright. Jason’s line of sight meanders from the slowly spreading stain making an island on Bruce's coat to the hand helping him, and to Bruce’s face. 

He is smiling. 

It takes Jason a second to find his voice. “Yes.”

“Good,” Bruce says and releases Jason. 

What happens next is a blur. Jason offers an apology, words that feel alien and out of place on his tongue. The corners of Bruce's eyes crinkle again in a smile and he brushes Jason's apology off. Someone behind Bruce gives their boss tissues out of nowhere and then Jason is left alone there to slowly find his center again. 

  
  


Is Bruce acting? The thought crossed his mind. 

But after a phone call and a thinly veiled threat directed to his replacement, it is revealed that Jason did not imagine the way Bruce had been looking at him. He’s seen Bruce angry. He’s seen Bruce frustrated, a hand’s breadth away from giving up on him entirely. He’s seen Bruce looking at him like he’s everything and still, he has chosen to walk away, and Jason has thought that was painful. 

Yet, it was nothing compared to the way he felt when he was no one in Bruce's eyes. 

It's a black tie affair, in a venue rented for its tie to Gotham's illustrious artistic past. Fit for a charity auction that invited half of Gotham's VIPS. 

Jason would've looked out of place with his too young face and busted lips and scars across his knuckles from fights he did not start but finished all the same. It’s to his gain that rich people tend to overlook the swarm of nicely dressed wait staffs attending them. And so Jason makes himself disappear among uniforms. 

Bruce is always at ease in a crowd. His social grace honed by the mere fact of being born as a blue blooded son of Gotham. Jason follows him with his eyes. Like this, Bruce is not larger than life. He was just a man. But still a man who held more power over Jason than anyone else ever would again. 

Maybe someday he will learn how to not be Bruce's satellite, orbiting around him. Tonight is not that day. 

"Have we met?" Bruce snatches a flute of champagne from the tray Jason is carrying. 

Jason pauses. His trajectory is carefully planned, but Bruce recognizing him and speaking to him is still something negligible and left to chance. He studies Bruce, takes in the faint redness at the highest points of his cheeks, the easy lassitude in the way he smiles crookedly. Bruce has been drinking, on the way to tipsy probably, and a coil sits firm in Jason’s stomach. "Maybe." 

Bruce tilts his head. "Hmmm."

"You wore my coffee,” Jason says. He ducks his head, plays up the sheepish and apologetic act. He too can play this game. 

Bruce’s laugh is a soft, warm titter. “Ah,” he says, amused. “Ocean eyes.”

Jason snaps his gaze up at that remark and Bruce is there to meet him, with the kind of fondness in the twinkle of his eyes that Jason hasn’t seen for literal years. And yeah, of course, Bruce would flirt with him, like he would with any other young men that are not Jason. Anyone but Jason. 

The momen is broken when someone taps Bruce’s shoulder, drawing him into a conversation without any by your leave to Jason, because tonight he was just one of the many insignificant faces that worked the gala. But Bruce slants his eyes at Jason even as he replies to the speaker. His smile is imbued with something that Jason is unwilling to decipher. 

Jason nods his head a fraction, a succinct acknowledgement, and it’s back to pretending he is a waiter again. 

It is hours later. The crowd has thinned and the gala is winding down and guests crowd into their limousines. Jason undoes the top button of his white shirt and lights up a cigarette with shaky hands, solid bricks against his back and the night sky bright with light pollution. 

“Ah, there you are,” a voice calls to him from the mouth of the alley. 

It takes a second, the smoke he exhales clearing, for him to make Bruce out. His profile is limned by light from the street beyond and all too soon the reality of Bruce, still impeccably dressed in designer suit, is walking closer to him. 

“I’m glad you’re still here.”

Jason huffs, lowered his cigarette all the way, hands dangling at his side as Bruce stands before him. Jason feels a little like a cornered animal. Caged in by Bruce’s presence. He does not quite meet Bruce’s eyes as he says, “Unlike someone. I got paid to be here. I’m taking a short break. There’s no going home until the venue is empty.”

It comes out bitter. But Bruce either does not catch his tone or does not care. He reaches out to one of Jason’s wrists as if forcibly chaining Jason’s attention to what he is going to say next. “Do you want to get something to eat? After this?”

And right then, a tiny supernova explodes in Jason’s mind. Bruce is asking _him_ out. What?

Jason lets the silence reign the full minute before he replies with, "I'm not that kind of guy.”

“What kind of guy?”

“The type that goes to a fancy gala in a fancy suit, and probably eats in a fancy restaurant with fancy late night service.”

Bruce smiles with his teeth. Unwavering. He waits Jason out, acting like for all intent and purposes there is only one answer that Jason would give. And Jason is sorely tempted to blow this man off. The Brucie Wayne that is not used to people saying no. 

But the loose grip that Bruce has around his wrist is so warm. And it must have been years since the last time Bruce touch him just for the sake of having some kind of contact with Jason. Something inside Jason that he has locked and throwed the key away… something in him is _yearning_. 

“Okay,” Jason says in the end. “But I choose the place.”

“Deal.”

Bruce is still there an hour later, just as Jason finishes clocking out from his cover job. He brings Bruce to their old haunt and ordered chili dogs for the both of them, watching Bruce intently all the while from the corner of his eyes.

“I did not catch your name,” Bruce said as he licks the sauce that drips down the side of his hot dog. 

“Jason,” he says. “Jason Todd.”

“Bruce—”

“I know.”


End file.
